The Dickinson press., 1887-12-03
A GOOD LIBRARY.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR THE
MAN WHO READS.

The First Law in Selecting Books-A
Library should Grow with the Mind.
Keep Your School Books-Light I.itcra.
turc.
Thr first law i'll selecting books is, l am
sure. to buy along the line of Your special
work. LIDO not say i'll the line. for that is
precisely what is not wanted. What we want
is not to he told what we can see or find out
for ourselves, but what will enable us to SEQ
moro broadly than our separate experience
would lead us to see. Books. while not lead
ing us @way from sure and special lines of
life work, should keep us from narrowing
ourselves into grooves.
The second law is to buy books, in the main,
rs we need them. y library should grow
with the mind. These two rules can be illus
trated together. We will suppose a mans
special line is an%thropolosy. Plainly lie
must also be n good student of history. He
must also be we'll acquainted with recent
biological researcllcS-wlich involve palcol-
tnlogy and zoology, at least as far as results
of investigation go. He will not have gone
far before evolution, us II scientific problem,
must be handled. Dealing fairly with this,
he finds himself involved in ancient religious
theories and comparative theology. need
nos carry the process farther, hut l say his
library should tie Nv a working library along
this line, and c) his books should be bought
as needed.
The possession of a large number of hooks
is not the possession of n library. Books,
however inherently valuable under certain
circumstances under other circumstances be-
Cn,no 1nr,1ar II * 1iEn "a Thousand mona c,r,,
of which only ten acres are worked, while
the wner lives in u bitof n hovcl. 1t is i'm
possible to express too strongly the close TO-
lation that mind growth should bear to
library growth. Itsllould be likcthe growth
of hone to a mans flesh.
No one should sell or give away his books
that nave been used and seem nolonger need
full. Especially should old school books and
college books be sarrcdly kept. To no other
books do we sustain so intimate personal re-
%lationship. We shall surely miss the very
copy of Horace and of De .imiritia that we
grew familiar with, and some day will desire
to turn to n passage i'll cars Poctica,' or
"Eia Sacra," and it will not lie quite the
same as when we read it in sophomore year
on the log inthc glen with Classmutc Stevens.
1 give every boy and girl warning not to part
with their text books in literature and
classics. Even my old Webstrr's spelling
book would now be Il treasure I" me. Are
such books part of Il library: Most truly,
yes. They are the very essential part of a
library-the tools we have used Is We came
nlong-but tools that never wear out.
Perhaps n careful distinction should lie
made between the books in our study and
those in tho library proper: for each man
should have his library, and each family
should have its library. The latter should lie
built on n less restricted plan: vot certainly
under careful rules. y home library should.
above all, have LII atmosphere %! Refinement
md good society. 1t should not admit n low
bred book any more than our drawing rooms
Should admit the familiarity ri low tr..,
people. An hour spent iii it should produce
the refrcshment that comes from a social
hour with witty and good friends.
A really good home library must include
rescripts: it is sometimes n pitv-ofteMer NOT.
There are not 100 good authors in general liz
crature that cannot hc wisely compressed.
1t will not pay to read them through. These
"Half Hours with the best authors are nee
essary and valuable. But when it comes to
history l am not SO sure. .And Us for "Bea,l-
ties of Ruskin,' beauties of Goethe" etc,
etc. let us burn them. If | cannot go into Il
rose garden for myself, l will thank You for
Il bunch of flowers: but for you to run ahead
of me with your nose and demand that l
shall smell over again your bouquet, | am in
clincd to select for myself.
A good library grows as our souls grow; it
widcns out its sympathies and gets a larger
outlook. But ut tho same time II slouglling
goes on. We only grow well as We can die
well. Some people have great difficulty in
dying to anything: they equally fail to grow;
that is, to enlarge. Such are your religious
bigots.s | hate to sec a man who reads an
author by the dose-one dose Il day; two
doses a %dny-thc way my grandmother took
her Bible. and as many take it yet, but in
smaller pellets. have n friend who carries
Shakespeare in his pocket, and bolts Il por-
ton each day. He resembles for all the world
apump that is rloggei up from having its
chain run too deep. Shakespeare has always
been too deep for the fellow, and he is only
pumping sand and gravel. Another took to
carrying n mathematical treatise. He is him
self an equal angled triangle inscribed in Il
circle. We must be able to change %intellec-
tually. outgrow and grow way from old
tastes. We all have our chrome period
some stop there.
The bulk of novels is of no more value than
blank paper. Children who have little real
world as yet need a great deal of the possible
and ideal. Novels, contrary to common
opinion, are peculiarly the books for the
young-truc novels. C~uriously, the worlds
earliest literature was mostly imaginative.
w. have poems and tales 1000 years old,
while logic did not find utterunce till about
$500 years ago. Voyages, travels, natural
history gradually come to serve i'll the place
of novels, the actual in the place of the pos
sible. Lowell urges the use of such old vol
umes of travel as were written by voyagers
"when tho world was fresh and unhack-
neyed." That last word of Iowcll's tells the
story very fully. A we'll visited place in
England was one that hackney coaches ran
to and 'front.' was Hackneyed. Today the
whole world is Hackneyed.-'E. P. Pr in
Globe-Democrat.